


spin me (right 'round)

by CaptainOzone



Series: Batfam Week 2018 [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: And does his best, Batfam Week 2018, But he's getting better, Canonical Character Death, Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 15:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15513192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainOzone/pseuds/CaptainOzone
Summary: Damian walks in on Stephanie crying and doesn't quite know how to handle it. Thankfully, he has learned a thing or two in the last three years from his father's gaggle of children, and he tries anyway.(He never expected to succeed).Written for Day 3 of Batfam Week 2018: Homecoming.





	spin me (right 'round)

**Author's Note:**

> This is set during Rebirth, after Tim's "death" and before his return, but there are also references from pre-New 52 and New 52, as well.
> 
> Warning: cheese and feels ahead.

There was someone in Drake’s room.

Normally, Damian would not care. Pennyworth often went in there to tidy up and dust, as though he expected Drake to return at any moment. He’d since learned that Pennyworth wasn’t a naïve fool, pining after lost opportunities and hoping for the impossible. In fact, Damian felt like a bit of a fool himself after being admonished by Grayson. Apparently, the older man had done much the same in Todd’s, Grayson’s, Father’s, and even his own room, once, back when they were also...indisposed. It was therapeutic for the man.

So Damian did not begrudge Pennyworth his moments alone in his dead brother’s room. He did not interrupt, and he did not linger.

But these were not the typical sounds Damian had come to associate with Pennyworth’s cleaning binges. There was no shuffling or puttering about, no classical music playing from his Pandora app.

It sounded like an animal almost, whining in a high-pitched keen and snuffling in between its sad cries. Damian wondered, momentarily, if Titus had perhaps gotten trapped in the room accidentally—it wouldn’t be the first time—but he dismissed the thought the moment it formed. He liked to think he knew the sound of his dog’s barks, whines, and harrumphs, and those did _not_ belong to Titus.

It was also far too late to be anyone with clearance into the Manor. The others were either already previously engaged or had gone on patrol without him, as he was currently benched. It was only he and Pennyworth in the Manor tonight, and the older man had retired at least an hour before.

No one else should be here. And _no one_ should be in Drake’s room. It was simply unacceptable.

Already planning to have a discussion with Father about the Manor’s security, Damian swiftly extracted a knife from its hidden sheath, flipped it smoothly into his grip, and bent his knees, crouching in preparation to sneak into the room. His sprained ankle protested, but he ignored the pain, gritting his teeth and slouching across the hall in his socks.

He looked down at them distastefully. He surely looked the picture of intimidating, dressed in his sleepwear and walking around in moderately oversized socks. Socks that were probably Drake’s, now that he thought about it.

His mother would shudder to see him so ill-prepared.

He scowled. Whatever. This intruder would not know what hit them, poor presentation aside.

Damian leaned against the wall near the doorframe, careful not to allow his flickering shadow to alert the person inside. He took a single breath to prepare himself and ever so slowly, he began to turn the door knob.

He realized he made an error when he saw who was inside.

A familiar head of blonde hair was lowered as she hunched over her lap, a glittering plum gown clutched in trembling fingers. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed, her grip on the dress tightening as she held it to her chest.

Brown was crying. In Drake’s room. Over a dress.

Damian did not understand. He stood frozen, his weapon arm going lax as he stared through the slim opening he’d made. Brown hadn’t noticed him. He could easily slip away, leaving her none the wiser to his presence.

It would be so easy to leave. Laughably easy.

But something held him there, and he stared at the girl who made it a personal mission to tell his Father “screw you” at least three times a day, the one who looked Batman and the others in the eye and dared to defy them, who dared to don her cape despite everyone telling her she was never good enough, that she’d never _be_ good enough.

This was the same girl who smiled and laughed so freely, who made her duty to teach Damian how to have fun—as silly as that sounded—because she was one of the first people to fully realize, perhaps even before Grayson, that he’d never had the opportunity to experience the things a child raised outside the League of Assassins normally would. She was the one who took no nonsense or refusals and hardly batted an eye when he threatened her with disembowelment, who dragged him to a moon bounce anyway, and to his first zoo, and to his first carnival with Grayson also in tow.

(They’d taken him on the Tilt-A-Whirl so many times that day, all three of them had nearly lost their lunch, but they’d smiled like loons and gone _again._  And again. And again).

Brown was willful, she was wild, and though Damian would never admit it to her face, he could see her value as an ally. She was _strong._ Damian didn’t think Brown had it _in_ her to cry. Not like this. Never like this.

It was an uncomfortable realization. He did not like it one bit. He should leave.

“Damian?”

Damian flinched, meeting Brown’s gaze. Her face was stained with runny makeup, eyes puffy, hair a rat’s nest. Even now, she stood unashamed at being caught so vulnerable, so weak, and Damian...still did not _understand_.

Feeling out of his element but unable to contain the impulse, Damian stepped through the doorway and frowned. “What are you sniveling about, Brown?”

Brown blinked, immune to his bristly greeting, and looked down at the dress on her lap. She smoothed it over, gingerly tracing over the rhinestone design. “Tonight was homecoming,” she said, tone a little numb. Even still, she smiled, and it wasn’t right, even to Damian. “It wasn’t a big deal, at the time. Who cares about a stupid dance, right?”

“A dance?” Damian asked slowly. He’d heard several of his classmates mention their older siblings partaking in such an event, but he could not recall Drake ever once expressing an interest before.

He was discovering there was a lot he could not recall ever knowing about Drake.

“Tim and I...” Brown trailed off, and she drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “Never mind. Just leave me alone, Dames.” She sounded desolate, and so, so tired. “I’ll be out of your hair by morning, promise.”

And Damian, out-of-his-depth and uncertain how to proceed, nodded and did just that.

He closed the door behind him and stared at the wood, his gut rebelling with the wrongness of what he just witnessed.

A little voice that sounded suspiciously like Grayson’s told him what he needed to do. What he _should_ do. He rejected it initially, growling at himself as he paced back into his room. Brown could handle herself. Besides, she had asked for privacy. He was not one to deny her that.

He wasn’t the one to know what to do in situations like this. She could mourn Drake how she pleased. He didn’t know _..._

(What a pathetic excuse. Weak). 

Before Damian could think twice, he slipped his “work phone” off of his desk and dialed the top number. The moment he heard the click on the other end, he said, “We have a mission, Kent.”

 _“Damian,”_ Jon yawned. “ _I know last-minute is kind of your thing, but this is pushing it. Dad wasn’t happy after the last time, you know. I’m still grounded.”_

“What?” Damian asked, surprised. _His_ father had only grounded him for a week. At best. He could not quite remember. “Never mind that. This is a mission of a more...personal nature.”

“ _Okay?_ ” Jon asked, and Damian could hear him ruffling around in his bedroom. “ _Is everything okay? You sound weird._ ”

Damian sighed and responded, “No. And I am the only one who is available at the moment to do something about it, so listen closely. I’m going to need you to do me a favor.”

Jon listened as Damian laid out his plan as efficiently as he would a report during a debriefing, and he tapped his foot impatiently as Jon sat in silence for a few seconds after he was done. “Well?” Damian demanded.

“ _Let me just...review really quick here, alright?_ ”

“Kent—”

“ _You want me to pick up at least three pints of ice cream._ ”

“Yes, yes, I already told you Pennyworth doesn’t keep trash in the Manor. I trust your judgment of flavors.”

“ _And y_ _ou want me to bring my Apples to Apples_ _game_. _And any others I want._ ”

“ _Yes_ , Jon. Brown loves Cards Against Humanity, but since I have been told it is inappropriate for our age and we do not have it here, we must make do. _Must_ I repeat myself?”

“ _Sure. Just...one more question. You...also said I can stay the night_?”

“Well, I doubt your father would like you flying home after the fact. We need to address the situation in its entirety, and I do not have a timeline,” Damian reasoned. “Besides, my father doesn’t care. There are more children than dust-mites here. Another one showing up at breakfast would hardly phase him or Pennyworth at this point.”

Jon started to laugh, and he said, “ _Alright. I think Mom and Dad would be okay with this. I’ll be there in twenty max.”_

“Make it fifteen,” Damian demanded, and because he did not appreciate being laughed at, he hung up without waiting for acknowledgement.

(He ignored the fact his face burned with mortification. The sacrifices he made for this family).

Seventeen minutes later, Damian decided it was worth mild embarrassment when he saw the look on Brown’s face after he and Jon barged into Drake’s room, laden with ice cream, blankets, and not only Apples to Apples but Candy Land, Scrabble, and the Wayne family’s cherished Settlers of Catan, and _demanded_ she join them.

It was worth it, too, to see her begin to smile as he gently removed the dress from her lap and deposited Alfred the Cat instead, insisting that he didn’t want to deal with the fur ball right now and that the cat was in a very good mood so she should be terribly grateful for his presence.

(Later, after Jon had fallen asleep and Brown had given him a soft hug, Damian would even dare say that it perhaps even felt... _good_ ).

**Author's Note:**

> If you guys want to read an adorable AF comic, check out Batgirl #17 (2009). It is where the moon bounce reference comes from, and it is also why I wish we saw Stephanie and Damian interacting more often than they do because they are so cute. So, SO cute. I hope I was able to capture some of the spirit of Batgirl #17 here in this fic, and I hope you enjoyed. :)


End file.
